The Hill: Lily Eskelsen Garcia Is Leading Candidate for ED Job

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2020 //
44

D.C.-based The Hill says that Lily Eskelsen Garcia, ex-president of the National Education Assiciation, is the leading candidate for U.S. Secretary of Education.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/530592-ex-teachers-union-leader-seen-as-leading-candidate-for-bidens

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) endorsed Eskelsen García for the job earlier this month, as did several Latino advocacy groups. The 11 female members of the CHC wrote to Biden earlier this week urging him to nominate at least two Latinas to his Cabinet. Biden has yet to name a Latina to a Cabinet role...

Eskelsen García began her career in education as a cafeteria worker. She went on to work as an elementary school teacher in Utah, earning teacher of the year honors in the state in 1989. 

More recently, she led the NEA, the country’s largest union, which boasts more than 3 million members. The group backed Biden in the Democratic primary and the general election. Incoming first lady Jill Biden is also a longtime member of the NEA.

Biden is expected to name all the members of his Cabinet before Christmas, and the guessing game will end.

Categories Biden, Education Reform, U.S. Department of Education

Report: Two New Top Contenders for Secretary of Education

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2020 //
55

The Washington Post reported that two new names have emerged as top contenders for Secretary of Education in the Biden Administration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/biden-education-secretary-fenwick-cardona/2020/12/16/5811142e-3fb4-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html

Laura Meckler and Valerie Strauss wrote:

Two lesser-known educators have emerged as top candidates for education secretary — a former dean at Howard University and the commissioner of schools in Connecticut, people familiar with the process said.
The first is Leslie T. Fenwick, dean emeritus of the Howard University School of Education and a professor of educational policy and leadership. The second is Miguel Cardona, who last year was named the top education official in Connecticut.


Both have positions that could draw fire, though in different ways. Fenwick is a fierce critic of many attempts at education reform, including some touted by President Barack Obama’s Education Department. Cardona has promoted a return to school buildings during the pandemic, saying it is imperative to get children back to face-to-face learning.


The situation remains fluid, and no decisions have been made. Three people familiar with the process said the transition committee is focusing its attention on these two candidates at the moment. Another person cautioned that others are in the mix. All four spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.…

Fenwick has criticized education programs such as Teach For America — a nonprofit that for years recruited only new college graduates, gave them five weeks of summer training and placed them in high-need schools — and the move to inject competition and corporate-inspired management techniques into schools. She’s also spoken against for-profit charter schools and taxpayer-funded private school vouchers.


She does not just argue that these ideas are misguided but calls them “schemes” that drain money from public schools, driven by people looking to profit from public education. She also says advocacy for these policies is a form of resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.


“These schemes are often viewed as new and innovative, but when you look at the history of these schemes — and I use the word ‘schemes’ purposefully — you find that they are rooted in resistance to the Brown legal decision,” Fenwick said in a video published in September.
Instead, Fenwick advocates for more equitable school funding formulas and better access to credentialed and committed teachers.…

Cardona was named Connecticut’s education commissioner last year and formally installed after a legislative vote in February. He began his career as a fourth-grade teacher, became the youngest principal in the state at 28 and was named principal of the year in 2012. He also served as co-chairman of a state task force examining achievement gaps.


After the pandemic forced schools to close, he worked to procure devices for students who needed them to participate in remote schooling and pushed to reopen buildings.


“We will continue to do everything we can to ensure as many children as possible have access to opportunities for in-person learning,” Cardona said this month. That comment came in response to teachers union demands that the state meet certain safety precautions or close buildings...

Cardona sees an urgency to in-person school and has pushed districts to offer that to parents, said spokesman Peter Yazbak.


“His position has been that in-person learning is the way that we best address the educational crisis caused by the closure of schools last spring,” he said. “A lot of people who are not from Connecticut assume that Connecticut is just Greenwich. But we have a lot of urban districts with students who have social and emotional needs as well as academic needs. The best way for them to get the services they need is in school, with counselors and their teachers…”





Cardona’s parents moved to Connecticut from Puerto Rico and were living in a housing project in Meriden when he was born. Under his tenure, Connecticut became the first state to require high schools to offer courses on Black and Latino studies.

Categories Biden, Education Reform, U.S. Department of Education

Michael Gerson: The Moral Hypocrisy of Conservative Leaders

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2020 //
55

So you thought the election was over after Joe Biden won the vote of the Electoral College on December 14, as predicted, by 306-232. And perhaps you thought it was over when Mitch McConnell finally congratulated Biden after the Electoral College voted and called him the President-Elect.

But: Trump is continuing his hapless campaign to reverse the election, despite the fact that his claims of fraud were rejected more than 50 times in state and federal courts and twice by the Supreme Court. Stephen Miller said that the election was not finished, that several states had prepared their own slates of Trump electors who would take their case to Congress, and that the decision about the presidency would not be finished until January 20, Inauguration Day. George Conway of the Lincoln Project told Anderson Cooper on CNN that Trump was behaving as he is for three reasons: 1) he is delusional; 2) he is scamming his followers by raising money for himself (whoever heard of a billionaire appealing for $5?); 3) he is malevolent.

Michael Gerson wrote in the Washington Post about the hypocrisy of certain rightwing “leaders” who support Trump’s ridiculous claim that the election was “stolen.”

Gerson wrote about the assault on democracy by conservative leaders, who are enabling Trump’s delusional behavior:

“It was stolen,” said conservative luminary William Bennett on a recent podcast. “The election was stolen.”


In a Dec. 10 open letter, a group of conservative stalwarts — including activist Gary Bauer, former senator and former president of the Heritage Foundation James DeMint, and head of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins — alleged that “President Donald J. Trump is the lawful winner of the presidential election.” They called on state legislators in battleground states to “appoint clean slates of electors to the Electoral College to support President Trump” and urged the House and Senate to reject competing slates reflecting the actual vote.


For some of us, watching prominent conservatives turn against rationality and democracy is not just disappointing; it is disorienting...

The intellectual bankruptcy and moral hypocrisy of many conservative leaders is stunning. People who claimed to favor limited government now applaud Trump’s use of the executive branch to undermine an election. A similar attempt by Barack Obama would have brought comparisons to Fidel Castro. People who talked endlessly about respecting the Constitution affirm absurd slanders against the constitutional order. People who claimed to be patriots now spread false claims about their country’s fundamental corruption. People who talked of honoring the rule of law now jerk and gyrate according to the whims of a lawless leader.

These conservative leaders no longer deserve the assumption of sincerity. They are spreading conspiratorial lies so unlikely and irrational, they must know them to be lies.

Gerson questions their motives for their immoral claims. Is it cynicism? Fear? A will to power? Why accept blatant lies? Why attack the foundation of democracy, which is free and fair elections? Why defend a would-be tyrant?

Perhaps these conservative leaders view democracy as a secondary concern, compared with the broader crisis of Western civilization. Maybe resisting the impending arrival of cultural and economic Marxism requires conservatives to use whatever means are necessary — including the invalidation of a valid election.
This justification — “by any means necessary” — may be the least conservative arrangement of letters in the English language.

Traditional conservatives have regarded such ideas as the path to tyranny, the highway to the guillotine. This approach assumes an emergency that does not actually exist. Are the barbarian hordes really arriving under the brutal, pitiless direction of . . . Joe Biden? Will the rescue of civilization from decadence really be accomplished under the courageous moral leadership of . . . Donald Trump?


Conservatism is supposed to produce the best of citizens — lawful, loyal and respectful of the Constitution. In some quarters, it is now producing the worst — fractious, resentful and cynical. A large portion of the responsibility rests on conservative leaders, who have sold their convictions cheap.

Categories Biden, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Failure, Hypocrisy, Trump

Nancy Flanagan: Norms, Ethics, and Civility

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2020 //
41

During the past four years, we have witnessed a dramatic erosion of norms, ethics, and civility, under the reign of a president who prided himself on having no allegiance to any of those requirements of life in a democracy. Norms, ethics, and civility were cast aside as encumbrances, like nuisances.

Nancy Flanagan writes here about the role of these unspoken, assumed practices in our lives. How they are sometimes constraints, sometimes naught but prejudices that we absorbed in our families. She describes the evolution in her own thinking and explains why education is so important is raising our understanding of what is required of us to live in peace with others.

Categories Education Reform

Carol Burris: How Charter Schools Cashed in on the Paycheck Protection Program

By dianeravitch
December 16, 2020 //
22

Dr. Carol Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that works to strengthen and improve public schools. Nearly 400,000 people in every state support its activities. Burris was a teacher and an award-winning principal in New York State.

This summer, the Network for Public Education reported that charter schools had received between one and two billion dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Small Business Administration loans. In most cases, these low-interest loans will not have to be paid back, resulting in a windfall for recipients. 

PPP amounts were initially reported in ranges and excluded any grantees that received below $150,000. Thanks to reporters’ persistence, however, we now know the exact amount and the smaller grantees who received PPP.

We matched the amounts with our previously identified group of charter schools and charter chain recipients. In total, those charters received an astounding $1,279,455,958. You can find a complete list of the charter schools and what they got here.

In addition to schools, charter support and advocacy organizations got PPP.  You can find that list here. It includes the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, which bragged that it made sure charter schools were included in PPP. NAPCS took $672,800, while the billionaire-funded California Charter Schools Association cashed in at $1,028,200.

We also scanned the new lists of small grants for charter school entries.  Because there were so many entries, we did a simple search on the words “charter school.”  This resulted in the identification (see here) of an additional $7 million going to charter schools. There is no doubt that a full search would uncover at least four times that amount.

How did the charter sector do?  When you add the pieces together, it adds up to nearly $1.3 billion.

Here are some highlights.

The largest amount ($8,377,100.00) given to a charter school went to Granada Hills High School, once a highly-regarded public school in an affluent area outside of Los Angeles that converted to a charter school.  

The second-largest amount went to Antelope Valley High School, which is “powered by” Learn4Life. Learn4Life is a charter school chain that operates by giving at-risk students worksheets they complete and return to Learn4Life centers often located in strip malls and shopping plazas. Learn4Life is now led by Caprice Young, who previously led the California Charter Schools Association and Magnolia charter schools, connected to the Gulen school chain. The entire Learn4Life chain received over $32 million. 

Finally, schools and nonprofits managed by the for-profit Academica chain received over $28.6 million in PPP.  

Charter schools claim to be public schools. They received public school funding via the CARES Act. Unlike the small businesses that shut down during the pandemic, thus losing their revenue stream, charter schools moved to remote learning, and their public tax dollar income stream continued.

It appears a new round of CARES Act funding is imminent. We will be watching to see if charter schools use their “private” status to cash in again. 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Funding

Three Big-City Superintendents: We Need a Marshall Plan for Our Schools: Now!

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2020 //
46

This article by the superintendents of New York City (Richard Carranza), Chicago (Janice Jackson), and Los Angeles (Austin Beutner) appeared in the Washington Post. For those too young to know, the Marshall Plan was a massive American investment in foreign aid package to rebuild Europe after World War II. It was proposed by General George Marshall.

President-elect Joe Biden has described the crisis in public schools caused by the pandemic as a “national emergency.” As the superintendents of the nation’s three largest public school districts — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — every day we grapple with the challenges that worry not just the president-elect but also the students and families we serve. Our schools, like thousands more across the nation, need help from the federal government, and we need it now.

The challenges school communities face aren’t for lack of effort by principals, teachers, staff, parents and students. Among our three districts, more than 2 million students and hundreds of thousands of educators have worked to transform teaching and learning from the inside out. We’ve seen teachers tackle long division from their kitchens and students debate the Constitution in Spanish from their living rooms.

But the fact is that for many — if not most — children, online and even hybrid education pales in comparison to what’s possible in a classroom led by a great teacher. Too many children are falling behind, threatening not just their individual futures but also America’s global competitiveness.

In Los Angeles Unified, where almost 80 percent of students live in poverty and 82 percent are Latino and African American, Ds and Fs by high school students have increased about 15 percent compared with last year. Meanwhile, reading proficiency in elementary grades has fallen 10 percent. In Illinois, students have lost more than a year of math progress. In New York City, 82 percent of students are children of color, largely from communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the virus, suffering tremendous loss and trauma that accompanies kids into the classroom. Across the country, math performance on standardized tests lags the prior year by 5 to 10 percentile points.

It’s time to treat the dire situation facing public school students with the same federal mobilization we have come to expect for other national emergencies, such as floods, wildfires and hurricanes. A major, coordinated nationwide effort — imagine a Marshall Plan for schools — is needed to return children to public schools quickly in the safest way possible.

Schools have shown that they can stay open safely despite community spread of the virus, but that demands the right set of actions, and adequate financial support, to bring students back safely and address the impact of this crisis head on.

Part of the problem is that the Cares Act and subsequent relief packages did not designate public school districts as recipients. Direct federal support for schools must be specific and targeted.

A federal relief package for schools should cover the basic building blocks of a safe, healthy and welcoming school environment so that educators and students can focus exclusively on their mission: high-quality teaching and learning. Funds should be provided directly to public school districts for four essential programs: cleaning and sanitizing of facilities and providing protective equipment; school-based coronavirus testing and contact tracing to help reduce the risk for all in the school community; mental health support for students to address the significant trauma they are facing; and funding for in-person instruction next summer to help students recover from learning losses because of the pandemic. Many local districts have poured resources into these efforts, and places such as New York City have seen success. But it’s simply not sustainable without federal support, and as covid-19 infection rates surge across the country, the pandemic shows no sign of slowing.

The cost of this lifeline for schools — an estimated $125 billion — is less than 20 percent of the total earmarked for the Paycheck Protection Program and about twice the amount provided to airlines. That’s a relatively small price to safely reopen the public schools that give millions of children a shot at the American Dream and their families the chance to get back to work.

Getting children back in the classroom and helping them recover must be addressed by the federal government with the same urgency and commitment as other disasters. Failure to do so will allow a “national emergency” to become a national disgrace that will haunt millions of children for the rest of their lives.

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Funding, Health, Los Angeles, NYC

Nancy Bailey: McKinsey Says It is Time for Schools to Get Tough with the Students

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2020 //
75

Nancy Bailey, writing with her usual perspicacity, calls out the consultants McKinsey and Company for a recent report encouraging schools to get tough with students to make up for the time “lost” during the pandemic.

For years McKinsey & Company has had a premier seat at the school reform table for the U.S., England, and worldwide, despite faulty reporting. Because of Covid-19, plans are being put in place to get tougher on students to make up for lost learning time. They use terms like high impact and high dosage tutoring. These plans often echo how students must learn for the future economy. But such pressure, after a year like no other, could be devastating to children.

The narrative goes like this: poor children of color from Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities have fallen behind in school due to Covid-19, so the country needs to ramp up instruction.

McKinsey & Company’s report “COVID-19 and learning loss—disparities grow and students need help,” outlines their ideas of equity and what they think should be done with students falling behind. They partnered with Chiefs for Change for the study.

Chiefs for Change, of course, is Jeb Bush’s outfit that promotes accountability and choice and digital learning.

To learn more about the report, open the link.

Categories Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Reform

Paul Peterson: “No, Al Shanker Did Not Invent the Charter School”

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2020 //
35

This is a fascinating article written by Paul Peterson of Harvard University about the origin of the charter school idea.

Many people credit the idea to Al Shanker and Ray Budde of the University of Massachusetts, but Peterson sets them straight.

Peterson is the foremost proponent of school choice, charters and vouchers, in the academic world. He has trained many of the other prominent academics who support school choice, such as Jay Greene and Patrick Wolf, both at the University of Arkansas’ Department of Educational Reform (sic).

Peterson writes about the original proposals by Budde and Shanker but then notes that their ideas were fundamentally transformed by Minnesota reformers Ted Kolderie and Joe Nathan. Budde and Shanker wanted the charters to be district-controlled and friendly to unions.

Peterson writes:

Even though it is fashionable enough to credit Shanker for jump-starting the charter movement that even the Wall Street Journal is joining in, there is only a glimmer of truth to that urban legend. In actuality, Shanker did more to block charters than to advance the idea.

When putting together an account of the origins of charter schools for my book, Saving Schools From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning, I had the opportunity to sort out what Shanker did and did not do for charters.  It’s true that Shanker, when first teaching in East Harlem, came to despise administrators who he felt were crushing the spirits of young teachers. So when he first encountered the charter idea advanced by Roy Budde, an unknown professor of education from upstate New York, Shanker, recalling life in East Harlem, gave charters his endorsement: “One of the things that discourages people from bringing about change in schools is the experience of having that effort stopped for no good reason,” he opined. So the Wall Street Journal story is not technically in error.

But charters only took off because others radicalized the charter concept Budde had devised. Reading Shanker’s column, Joe Nathan and Ted Kolderie, at work on educational reform in Minnesota, saw potential in the charter idea. Delighted that the powerful Al Shanker had given it his blessing, they invited him to the Twin Cities to help peddle it to Governor Rudy Perpich and the state’s legislature.

But as they worked on the legislation that was eventually passed in 1991, Nathan and Kolderie fundamentally altered the charter concept.  According to the Budde model, charters were to be authorized by school districts and run by teachers. Central office administrators were to be pushed aside, but charter schools would still operate within collective bargaining arrangements negotiated between districts and unions.

Nathan and Kolderie instead proposed that schools be authorized by statewide agencies that were separate and apart from local district control. That opened charter doors not only to teachers but also to outside entrepreneurs. Competition between charters and districts was to be encouraged.  All of a sudden, charter schools were free of the constraints imposed by collective bargaining contracts districts negotiated with unions.

At this point, Shanker signed off, calling charters a “gimmick,” and teacher unions ever since have done their best to slow the movement down, insisting that charters be authorized only if local districts agree, as well as burdening charters with numerous regulations, including a requirement that they be subject to collective bargaining.  For Shanker and his heirs, the collective bargaining agreement always came first.

Thanks to Kolderie and Nathan, the charter idea was immediately embraced by rightwing foundations who really wanted vouchers, but realized that charters were an easier sell.

Thanks to them, more than 90% of charters today are non-union, are under-regulated, and have virtually no oversight.

Thanks to them, charters have drawn the support of not only right-wingers like Betsy DeVos and Charles Koch as a battering ram to use against public schools, but are a magnet for entrepreneurs, real estate speculators, corporate charter chains, and grifters.

Of course, they are some mom-and-pop or teacher-led charters trying to revive the original idea. But the industry far outweighs their efforts.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Unions

Wall Street Journal: Time for Trump to Concede

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2020 //
27

The Wall Street Journal is one of the most conservative editorial voices in the nation. Today its editorial says that the Electoral College has decided the election. Biden won. Trump lost. Trump should concede.

The Electoral College meets Monday to cast its votes for President, officially marking Joe Biden as the election winner. President Trump’s legal challenges have run their course, and he and the rest of the Republican Party can help the country and themselves by acknowledging the result and moving on.

Mr. Trump’s last legal gasp came Friday evening when the Supreme Court declined to hear the Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. As we predicted, the Court cited Texas’s lack of legal standing to challenge how another state manages its elections. 

Some on the right claim that Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, but this is wrong. The Justices said they would have taken the Texas case as a “bill of complaint” when states sue other states. 

This is a technical point that concerns the Court’s case management, and the two Justices have a long-time view that the Court should hear more of these direct state appeals. We happen to agree, but in this case the Texas claim was outside constitutional bounds. Justice Alito (joined by Justice Thomas) added that he would “not grant other relief.” This was not a dissent on the merits of the Texas claim.

Mr. Trump and his camp are attacking the Court, and the President is deriding the “standing” point as a dodge. It is much more than that. Limits on standing are fundamental to a conservative understanding of the proper judicial role under Article III of the Constitution. If anyone can sue without a cognizable injury and the possibility of remedy, the courts would be overwhelmed with frivolous claims.

There is more to the editorial but I don’t subscribe and this is the free content available to me. Note: Even if Alito and Thomas had dissented, which they did not, the vote would have been a decisive 7-2 against Trump’s frivolous claim. It was 9-0 against Trump’s frivolous claim. At what point do courts begin to fine and punish lawyers for repeatedly filing frivolous claims?

Categories Accountability, Elections, Trump

James Hohmann: Michigan Capitol Locked Down As Electoral College Meets

By dianeravitch
December 14, 2020 //
45

There has never been an election in the United States like this one.

Donald Trump continues to insist that the election was stolen and that he is the rightful winner, even though his opponent Joe Biden has 6-7 million votes more than Trump does and even though Biden will register 306 votes in the Electoral College today, the same as Trump called “a landslide” when he won in 2016. In every presidential election in recent memory, the loser conceded defeat before the Electoral College met. Not Trump. He vows to continue his fight. Some commentators think that he is “fighting” because he is collecting millions of dollars from small donors, which he may use to pay his legal fees after leaving the White House or to pay off bank loans.

About three-quarters of Trump voters believe what he says, despite the Trump campaign’s failure to win in any consequential court, despite 50 losses in state courts, and two rejections by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Among his supporters are people prone to violence. James Hohmann writes in the Washington Post that the Michigan state capitol was locked down to protect the members of the state’s Electoral College.

Michigan’s 16 electors will convene at 2 p.m. Eastern inside a heavily guarded state capitol in Lansing to cast their ballots for Joe Biden to become president and Kamala Harris to become vice president.

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) said in a statement overnight that the entire capitol complex will be closed to the public based on “recommendations from law enforcement” amid “credible threats of violence.” Police will escort each of the electors from their cars amid what’s expected to be a large “Stop the Steal” protest outside.

This certainly sounds like the prudent call, but it is nevertheless lamentable that the closures – combined with coronavirus precautions – will strip some of the pomp and circumstance from a sacred American tradition that is typically pro forma.

Ugly events this weekend – from Washington, D.C., to Washington state and Minnesota to Kentucky – showed that violence is not hypothetical. This is an especially dangerous development in a democracy that depends upon losers accepting the results of free and fair elections.

Police in Olympia, Wash., arrested an armed right-wing protester and charged him with shooting a counterdemonstrator during protests on Saturday night.

In the nation’s capital, at least four people were stabbed, including someone who is now in critical condition, and 33 more were arrested, after rallies supporting President Trump descended into chaos fueled by white nationalists. D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham estimates that as many as 700 Proud Boys and their confederates roamed downtown streets looking to start fights, clashing with about 200 anti-Trump protesters.

Many photographs show the Proud Boys carrying Confederate flags. If they want to secede from the Union, let them go. It is never too late.

Are they Confederates or fascists or both?

Can Trump be impeached retroactively for betraying his oath of office? For attacking the Constitution? For sedition?

Categories Democracy, Fascism, Trump
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