Sue Legg: Is the Florida Legislature Planning to Undermine Teachers’ Pensions?

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2019 //
4

Sue Legg of the Florida League of Women Voters wrote here about concerns about teachers’ pensions and whether the 2020 legislature is planning to undermine them.

She writes:

There are rumblings that the 2020 Florida Legislature may revise funding for the Florida Pension Plan.   There is no question that the retirement system revenue has declined; it has not been 100% funded since the 2008 recession. The current rate is about 84% of the cost if all people retired at one time. Of course that is an unlikely scenario, but there are now more people vested in the system than are contributing to it. One million public employees participate in the system, about half are teachers and the others are local and state government employees. As retirees increase and new participants decrease, covering costs becomes more problematic…

Pensions are not the problem..The real question as always is whether funding pensions is mostly a political, not a financial issue.  The National Association of State Retirement Administrators cited a report stating that an 80% funding level is the federal benchmark for financial stability of state pension systems.  Florida’s level exceeds that benchmark. Nevertheless, there is a political divide over providing pensions, and it is closely tied to those supporting school privatization.  Florida charters and private schools typically do not contribute to retirement systems, and the resulting high teacher turnover keeps salaries lower.   Thus, there is more money available for management companies in the private sector.   This is not a recipe for a high quality educational system.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Florida, For-Profit, Pensions, Privatization, Teachers, Vouchers

Wendy Lecker: Stop Blaming Schools for Chronic Absenteeism

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2019 //
9

In the era of Bush-Obama education policy, it became conventional wisdom to blame schools for the effects of poverty. Civil rights lawyer Wendy Lecker explains that the test-and-punish regime continues by blaming schools and punishing them for chronic absenteeism. 

She writes:

NCLB measured school quality based on standardized test scores and relied on sanctions such as school turnaround, takeover and privatization. After almost two decades under NCLB, and the acknowledgment that the metric was inaccurate and the prescriptions were ineffective, the federal government decided to try a tweaked version of its failed test-and-punish regime.

The ESSA system employs multiple “indicators” of school quality. Each indicator provides schools and districts with points that together dictate what types of sanctions are imposed. The dashboard showing the schools’ and districts’ points for each indicator are also published online.

Nowhere on this dashboard is the state graded for whether or not it adequately funds Connecticut public schools, even though nationwide evidence proves a causal connection between school spending and student achievement.

One indicator under Connecticut’s ESSA plan is chronic absenteeism. The rationale Connecticut provides for including this indicator is the research and data demonstrating an association of chronic absenteeism to student academic achievement and high school graduation. What the ESSA plan does not detail are the causes of absenteeism.

A new study from Wayne State University tracks the incidence of chronic absenteeism across U.S. cities. The researchers found that nationwide, certain factors are significantly correlated with chronic absenteeism, namely: long-term population change, asthma rates, poverty and unemployment rates, residential vacancy rates, violent crime rates, average monthly temperature, and racial segregation.

Thus, although under Connecticut’s accountability system, chronic absenteeism is an indicator of school quality, and can contribute to a school or school district being subjected to increasingly draconian sanctions, none of the factors listed above that are significantly correlated with chronic absenteeism has anything to do with school.

Common sense in federal education policy would be nice for a change.

Categories Accountability, Connecticut, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Poverty

Kentucky: New State Board Ousts State Commissioner

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2019 //
8

Newly elected Governor Andy Beshear campaigned on a platform prioritizing public education and promising to oust the state board appointed by DeVos ally Matt Bevin, as well as the state commissioner it appointed, Wayne Lewis, who supported charter schools. (The Legislature passed a charter authorization bill but never funded any charters.) Beshear stated bluntly that he does not support charters or any other form of privatization of public schools.

Beshear replaced the 11 members of the Bevin-appointed State Board on day one, although their terms had not expired. Today that board removed Wayne Lewis and opened a national search for a new state commissioner. 

The Bevin board is suing to protest its ouster since it was not dismissed for cause.

Categories Education Reform, Kentucky

Charter Industry Announces Its Plans to Disrupt Pittsburgh Forum on Public Education on Saturday

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2019 //
28

Prominent groups that support public schools–not charter schools or religious schools–are meeting on Saturday in Pittsburgh to discuss the future of public education with Democratic presidential candidates.

The billionaire-funded charter industry is angry that they can’t control the event and they have released their plans to disrupt the event.

Contrary to the claims of the charter industry, charter schools are not public schools. They are private contractors that receive public money and are typically unregulated and fail to meet basic standards of accountability and transparency.

Unfortunately, their leaders insist on minimal or non-regulation, assuring that grifters and entrepreneurs will be able to receive public dollars without any accountability.

The industry resolutely refuses to acknowledge, let alone curb, the waste, fraud, and abuse that has created a backlash against charter schools.

The Center for Education Reform, led by former Heritage Foundation education analyst Jeanne Allen, sent out this email:

 

 Charter Schools in Pittsburgh & Leaders

 throughout Pennsylvania Unite

 

Issue strong message to special interest sponsors of “Public Education Forum 2020” and the Democratic candidates ignoring parental demands

 

 

WASHINGTON – Charter school leaders in Pittsburgh, joined by others throughout Pennsylvania, and by key state democratic officials issued strong statements today challenging the Democratic candidates for president who will be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this Saturday, December 14, 2019, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for the “Public Education Forum 2020: Equity and Justice for All.” Sponsored by unions and other interest groups, the Forum has sparked strong responses from the Pennsylvania charter school community, with its unfounded attacks upon the substantive work being carried out throughout the state and right in the city where the forum will be held.

 

“We call on the candidates to remember those who won’t be there: the thousands of parents from underserved communities tragically forced to watch their children suffer academically because of a failed system that refuses any real reform,” said representatives of 5 of the city’s charter schools in a statement, speaking on behalf of the state’s 143,000 charter school students and their parents.

 

“The Democratic Presidential candidates have been summoned to demonstrate their allegiance to the unions and special interests who they believe hold the key to their nomination,” said CER Founder & CEO Jeanne Allen. “Not invited were any charter or reform minded voices to participate in this nationally televised forum where Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is expected to attend and criticize the very charter schools he has tried to keep from operating.”

 

Many charter educators will be on the ground in Pittsburgh to make their voices heard, including Dara Ware Allen, PhD, CEO and Principal, City Charter High School; Dr. Tina Chekan, CEO/Superintendent, Propel Schools; Jon McCann, CEO, Environmental Charter School; Vasilios Scoumis, CEO, Manchester Academic Charter School; Brian Smith, Founder & CEO, Catalyst Academy Charter School; William C. Wade, Ed.S., CEO, Urban Pathways K5 College Charter School; and David Zeiler, CEO, Provident Charter School. They have issued the following statement in response to the Public Education Forum this Saturday.

 

“As eight potential future presidents gather here in Pittsburgh this Saturday and are hosted by some of the nation’s most powerful special interests, we call on the candidates to remember those who won’t be there: the thousands of parents from underserved communities tragically forced to watch their children suffer academically because of a failed system that refuses any real reform. It is a cruel irony that the tagline of this weekend’s forum is ‘equity and justice for all’ when all the candidates being celebrated each oppose the very policies that help our schools give such words real meaning. Thanks to school choice, our public charter schools prevail at giving life-altering opportunity to children for whom educational success – and the more hopeful and secure future that comes with it – would likely be denied.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Privatization

Andy Borowitz: Trump Named Person of the Year by….

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2019 //
20

Andy Borowitz (humorist) says Donald Trump was named Person of the Year by Popular Sociopath.

For the third year in a row, Donald J. Trump has been named Person of the Year by the magazine Popular Sociopath, the publication announced on Thursday.

“Once a year, we at Popular Sociopath recognize the person who best epitomizes sociopathic-personality disorder, which manifests in antisocial behavior and a total absence of conscience and concern for others,” Harland Dorrinson, the magazine’s editor, said. “We are delighted to bestow this honor, once again, on Donald J. Trump.”

Dorrinson said that Trump bested a daunting roster of competitors for the title, including the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell; the Fox News host Tucker Carlson; and Trump’s own son Donald J. Trump, Jr.

“Honestly, though, it wasn’t close,” the editor said.

When asked, the parody said, Trump said he was proud to beat out his son.

 

Categories Education Reform

Eric Holder Blasts Bill Barr for Acting as Trump’s Lapdog

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2019 //
12

Today in the Washington Post,  Eric Holder criticized Bill Barr for his aggressive, partisan support of Trump.

Holder was Obama’s Attorney General. Barr is Trump’s Roy Cohn.

Barr has professed his belief that the president’s powers have no limits; Congress must bow to the president.

He has joined the “culture wars” by attacking “liberals,” which is an opinion, not an expression of the law.

Republican moderates, a nearly extinct breed of person, once hoped that Barr would be a stabilizing force in this administration.

They were wrong.

Whatever and whoever Trump touches dies or loses their reputation.

As a former U.S. attorney general, I am reluctant to publicly criticize my successors. I respect the office and understand just how tough the job can be.

But recently, Attorney General William P. Barr has made a series of public statements and taken actions that are so plainly ideological, so nakedly partisan and so deeply inappropriate for America’s chief law enforcement official that they demand a response from someone who held the same office.

Last month, at a Federalist Society event, the attorney general delivered an ode to essentially unbridled executive power, dismissing the authority of the legislative and judicial branches — and the checks and balances at the heart of America’s constitutional order. As others have pointed out, Barr’s argument rests on a flawed view of U.S. history. To me, his attempts to vilify the president’s critics sounded more like the tactics of an unscrupulous criminal defense lawyer than a U.S. attorney general.

When, in the same speech, Barr accused “the other side” of “the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law,” he exposed himself as a partisan actor, not an impartial law enforcement official. Even more troubling — and telling — was a later (and little-noticed) section of his remarks, in which Barr made the outlandish suggestion that Congress cannot entrust anyone but the president himself to execute the law.

In Barr’s view, sharing executive power with anyone “beyond the control of the president” (emphasis mine), presumably including a semi-independent Cabinet member, “contravenes the Framers’ clear intent to vest that power in a single person.” This is a stunning declaration not merely of ideology but of loyalty: to the president and his interests. It is also revealing of Barr’s own intent: to serve not at a careful remove from politics, as his office demands, but as an instrument of politics — under the direct “control” of President Trump.

Not long after Barr made that speech, he issued what seemed to be a bizarre threat to anyone who expresses insufficient respect for law enforcement, suggesting that “if communities don’t give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need.” No one who understands — let alone truly respects — the impartial administration of justice or the role of law enforcement could ever say such a thing. It is antithetical to the most basic tenets of equality and justice, and it undermines the need for understanding between law enforcement and certain communities and flies in the face of everything the Justice Department stands for.

It’s also particularly ironic in light of the attorney general’s comments this week, in which he attackedthe FBI and the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General — two vital components of his own department. Having spent the majority of my career in public service, I found it extraordinary to watch the nation’s chief law enforcement official claim — without offering any evidence — that the FBI acted in “bad faith” when it opened an inquiry into then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. As a former line prosecutor, U.S. attorney and judge, I found it alarming to hear Barr comment on an ongoing investigation, led by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, into the origins of the Russia probe. And as someone who spent six years in the office Barr now occupies, it was infuriating to watch him publicly undermine an independent inspector general report — based on an exhaustive review of the FBI’s conduct — using partisan talking points bearing no resemblance to the facts his own department has uncovered.

When appropriate and justified, it is the attorney general’s duty to support Justice Department components, ensure their integrity and insulate them from political pressures. His or her ultimate loyalty is not to the president personally, nor even to the executive branch, but to the people — and the Constitution — of the United States.

Categories Democracy, Fraud

Steven Singer: These Are My Questions for the Democratic Candidates

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2019 //
24

Steven Singer will be in Pittsburgh on Saturday as part of the Network for Public Education delegation to the MSNBC forum on public education.

Here are his questions for the candidates. 

He won’t get to ask them all, but they are all great questions!

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, Testing

Watch Livestream of the Public Education Forum on Saturday December 14 at 9 AM

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2019 //
6

The Network for Public Education Action is one of the pro-public education groups that will participate in the forum on Public Education Issues in Pittsburgh on Saturday.

The event will be livestreamed on MSNBC. 

Since the event was announced, candidates Cory Booker and Michael Bennett have joined the list of speakers.

Each group will have the opportunity to ask one question of one candidate.

Please note that the event will start at 9 a.m.

NPE Action will be there with a stellar group of supporters of public schools.

Categories Democrats, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Supporting public schools

ProPublica: A User’s Guide to Democracy

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2019 //
0

 

I benefit by reading the investigations done by ProPublica. I signed up for their alerts about democracy and how to protect it.

 

ProPublica Donate to ProPublica

A User’s Guide to Democracy

DEMOCRACY WORKS FOR YOU. HERE’S HOW TO BE A BETTER BOSS.
Hi there,

Who’s ready to become smarter, more engaged and more empowered when it comes to Congress?

If you’ve signed up for this newsletter, hopefully your answer is …

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be your guide to the 116th Congress. We’re going to talk about who your representatives in Congress are, what it is they do, why they get gridlocked, how money influences lawmaking and a whole lot more.National politics can seem distant or complicated — but I promise, it’s pretty easy to follow once you know the basics.

I’m Cynthia, by the way, director of marketing at ProPublica. I’m also a culture writer, a Philly native and a former political reporter. But until I started working on this project, honestly, I was a little rusty on these subjects myself. That’s why I’m writing to you, instead of our investigative reporters and data nerds. Because I believe you shouldn’t have to be an expert to participate in our democracy. I learned this stuff — you can, too.

To help us both out, I tapped ProPublica’s reporters who cover Congress, PACs and lobbyists; asked them a ton of questions; and stripped down what I learned to the most essential parts. Then, to help you get good and familiar with what all this means for you and your community, I worked with our data team to personalize the emails you receive.

I’ll share these lessons with you, one email at at a time. Each one should take less than 10 minutes to get through. At the end of each email, I’m going to give you some homework to do over the next week: things you can do to be better informed and more engaged.

Before I go: We noticed you didn’t enter your congressional district, and we’d highly recommend reconsidering. You can look up your district here (please note: you’ll have to enter your email address again). If you don’t live in the U.S. or you don’t want to get customized information about your own lawmakers, you can select one of these members of Congress to learn more about:

See you soon,
Cynthia Gordy Giwa
Proud ProPublican
Categories Democracy, Education Reform

Michael Kohlhaas: Charter Leader in Los Angeles Harasses Teacher Protesting Co-Location and Unqualified Staff at Charter

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2019 //
11

Michael Kohlhaas, blogger in Los Angeles, writes here about a charter leader who harassed a teacher who protested his staff’s lack of qualifications.

Excelencia Charter Academy is yet another creepy little charter school run by yet another shockingly unqualified creepy little galaxy-brained grifter, this one known as Ruben Alonzo, going about the place making creepy little announcements of delusionally impending disruptive excellence while lining his creepy little pockets with public money1 at the expense of the actual human children that the state legislature, for reasons they’re going to have to answer for eventually, has seen fit to place into his care.

In this regard Alonzo is much like Sakshi Jain, shockingly unqualified founder of the ill-fated GANAS Academy, whose plan to co-locate on the campus of Catskill Elementary School conjured up such a monumental hurricane of activist opposition and scorn that, it appears, she has had to put her school’s opening on hold while she slinks back to her lair to soothe her metaphorical wounds with a salve made of equal parts boorish self-pity and Walton family megabucks.

Unlike Jain, though, Alonzo did actually manage to open his school. In the Fall of 2018 as it happens and, like Jain’s fiasco, co-located, in this case on the campus of Sunrise Elementary School in Boyle Heights. And like Jain’s folly Alonzo’s weirdo little project conjured up some opposition, most publicly from Sunrise Elementary teacher Mimi Guzman-Duncanson.

Duncanson famously parked her SUV out in front of the school covered in flyers advertising the appalling lack of qualifications of Excelencia’s teachers, let alone Ruben Alonzo, the self-proclaimed founder. Duncanson’s protest was covered in the Los Angeles Timesand by Jason McGahan, writing in The Baffler.

You can see a picture of Maestra Duncanson2 with her minivan somewhere near this sentence.That picture and another like it came from a huge set of emails released to me recently by Alonzo pursuant to the California Public Records Act.3 And if it looks like hostile photography, like surveillance, well, that’s because that’s precisely what it is. It turns out that aggressively callow hellbaby Ruben Alonzo just could not deal with the fact that anyone at all dared to question his galaxy-brained 29 year old self.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization, Teachers
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