NPE News Briefs ← from The Network for Public Education:
NPE News Briefs
from The Network for Public Education
Serial School Privatizer ‘Chainsaw Paul’ Vallas Eyes Illinois Lt. Governor Gig | Alternet
There are many things upon which elite corporate Democrats are in complete agreement with elite corporate Republicans. Often enough they are far more important to the way we live our lives than the cultural rhetoric and stylistic fluff that separates the two parties. Both Republicans and Democrats agree on empire and the wars needed to preserve ...read more
Why many Democrats have turned against teachers unions | The Washington Post
BY VALERIE STRAUSS For years now it’s been clear that Democrats have splintered over the issue of corporate school reform. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have been leaders of the movement to transform public schools through standardized-test-based “accountability” and the expansion of charter schools, with other Democrats arguing that these reform measures are ...read more
Duncan Slapped by NEA Rank and File | CURMUDGUCATION
The NEA resolution calling for the departure of Arne Duncan will be picked apart at great length this weekend. I’m pretty sure that Arne is not looking at his paper this morning thinking, “Well, damn. I guess I’d better resign then.” Nor do I think his resignation would accomplish much in practical terms. But it ...read more
Is the Charter Movement Imploding? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
In state after state, charter schools are proving that it is downright risky to turn public money over to deregulated corporations and unqualified individuals to run schools. The Detroit Free Press series on the scams, frauds, and corruption in many Michigan charters was an eye-opener for all those who are not part of the charter ...read more
Breaking News: NEA delegates Pass Resolution Calling for Arne Duncan’s Resignation | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Delegates to the national convention of the National Education Association passed a resolution calling for the resignation of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Similar resolutions did not pass in 2011 ad 2012. The resolution was proposed by the California Teachers Association. Teachers are angry at Duncan because of his support for the controversial Vergara decision, ...read more
YESTERDAY
Schneider: Showdown Between Louisiana Governor Jindal and Commissioner White Gets Amusing | Diane Ravitch’s blog
On June 18, Governor Jindal announced that Louisiana was pulling out of Common Core and dropping PARCC testing. State commissioner of education John White disagreed. The state board of education supports White. Wow! The Governor versus the state commissioner! Mercedes Schneider brings us up to date on this epic struggle between the governor and the ...read more
The VergarGuments are Coming to New York State! | School Finance 101
And so it goes… The VergarGuments keep-a-comin… spreading their way from California to the Empire State, from Albany to Buffalo. And what are VergarGuments you say? Well, a VergarGument is a fallacious form of legal reasoning applied in the context of state constitutional litigation over causes of inequities and inadequacies of schooling selectively suffered by ...read more
Hess: Free Press Charter Stories “Unhelpful” | CURMUDGUCATION
The Detroit Free Press recently ran a huge, extensively researched and reported story on Michigan’s charter schools. They concluded, among other things, that charters hoover up a billion dollars with little transparency, that many charters are simply an ATM for family and friends of operators, that even really bad charters have stayed open for decade, ...read more
Be a Patriot: Support Gus Morales! | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Defend a brave teacher! Defend students! Sign the petition to reinstate Gus Morales! Gus Morales was elected head of his school union in Holyoke, Massachusetts, as an outspoken opponent of high-stakes testing and privatization. Children’s test scores were posted in a data wall. Morales objected. Only weeks after his election, he was fired. “As I ...read more
NEA Endorses National Campaign Against “Toxic Testing” | Diane Ravitch’s blog
NEA delegates approve creation of national campaign for equity and against “Toxic Testing” Campaign to focus on assessments and developing real accountability systems DENVER—The National Education Association (NEA) will launch a national campaign to put the focus of assessments and accountability back on ensuring equity and supporting student learning and end the “test blame and ...read more
JUL 03
Teaching as a Profession?: Heading for the Exits, Fellows, and North Carolina | Cloaking Inequity
Teacher attrition is an issue across the United States. Amongst traditionally trained teachers, about 50% leave after 5 years. The infamous Teach For America program has an attrition rate of about 80% after five years (this is why Teach For America wants to focus the public on a 50% in “education” field number). As seen ...read more
A Partial Look at Michelle Rhee’s Finances | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Politico.com reports on some of the finances of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and StudentsFirst Institute, based on the 990 tax form that her group is required to file. During the fiscal year from August 2012 to July 2013, her organizations raised $28.6 million, down slightly from the previous year. She does not disclose the names of ...read more
TEA Chief Circumvents State Board Charter School Veto | The Texas Tribune
Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams has used his waiver authority to effectively overrule a vote by the State Board of Education to deny an Arizona-based charter school’s expansion into the Dallas area, according to an email obtained by The Texas Tribune on Wednesday. In December, the 15-member elected board voted 9 to 6 to veto ...read more
ABC7 interviews Karen Lewis about possible run for mayor | Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog
ABC7′s Ben Bradley sat down with Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis to discuss her possible run for mayor. via Mike Klonsky’s SmallTalk Blog: ABC7 interviews Karen Lewis about possible run for mayor.
Detroit Free Press on Its Probe of Michigan Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch’s blog
The Detroit Free Press published a series of deeply researched articles about the charter schools in the state, most of which operate for profit. The state spends $1 billion on charters but does not hold them accountable for financial practices or academic outcomes. Charter schools do NOT get better results educating students in poverty. Will ...read more
Anthony Cody: These Tests are Designed to Fail Students | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Anthony Cody points out the contradiction between claims that the Common Core will prepare students for college and careers and the reality that the Common Core tests are designed to fail most students. He also notes what happened to the GED graduation rate after Pearson took control of the program. The pass rate on the ...read more
The Reading Wars Continue: Scientific Literacy vs. Balanced Literacy | Russ on Reading
The reading wars are back with us again. Carmen Farina, the new schools chancellor in New York City, said recently that she wants to see more aspects of “balanced literacy” put back into instruction in the city’s schools. You can see the New York Times report here. The city moved away from balanced literacy under ...read more
Malloy and Pryor: The Connecticut Charter School Debacle Expands | Wait What?
Thanks to Governor Dannel “Dan” Malloy and his Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, Connecticut’s charter school industry has been sucking up tens of millions of dollars in public funds that could have been going to help Connecticut’s real public schools. Malloy’s unlimited commitment to charter schools runs so deep that when he brags that he ...read more
Who Would Replace Arne Duncan | CURMUDGUCATION
This question turned up on twitter again yesterday, and it represents one more popular daydream– the end of Arne Duncan’s tenure as Secretary of Education. I understand the appeal. Duncan has become the poster boy for reformsters, the face of everything teachers hate about this administration’s education policy. When the administration has something annoying or ...read more
Why is the Obama Administration Attacking Teachers Unions? | Alternet
July 3, 2014 We are living in an era when the very idea of public education is under attack, as are teachers’ unions and the teaching profession. Let’s be clear: these attacks and the power amassed behind them are unprecedented in American history. Sure, there have always been critics of public schools, of teachers, and ...read more
Diane Ravitch’s blog | A site to discuss better education for all
Rocketship charter chain had an audacious plan to enroll one million students nationwide, drawing students from poor and immigrant communities, putting them in front of a computer in large classes, and relying on low-wage (mainly Teach for America) “teachers.” The chain got high scores and began opening charters outside San Jose, California, where it originated, ...read more
JUL 02
Teachers’ Union President Fired Following Opposition to High-Stakes Testing | Working In These Times
Holyoke, Massachusetts has the third-highest poverty rate of all the cities and towns in Massachusetts. And like many other high-poverty cities, Holyoke has been targeted for education reform: high-stakes testing, the elimination of due process for teachers, and the curtailment of elective curriculums that include gym, arts and foreign languages. In Holyoke, those policies have ...read more
Schneider’s Ten Reform Claims: A Reader | the becoming radical
Jack Schneider’s Ten Reform Claims That Teachers Should Know How to Challenge provides a powerful framework for educators to mobilize our much needed roles as teachers for the wider public. I want here to use his ten claims as a basis for providing support for anticipating and then challenging the flawed claims and policies coming ...read more
Public Schools in New York City Are Poorer and More Crowded, Budget Agency Finds | NYTimes.com
Schools in New York are becoming more congested, federal and state aid has dropped, and the number of students in “temporary housing situations,” including homeless shelters, has shot up, according to a report on the state of public education the city’s budget oversight agency issued on Tuesday. Nearly 450,000 students were enrolled in overcrowded buildings, ...read more
Microsoft Cashes in on Common Core and Online Testing | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Are you ready for the new standards? Check out how Microsoft can help your school. via Microsoft Cashes in on Common Core and Online Testing | Diane Ravitch’s blog.
Teacher evaluations could affect pay raises | Albuquerque Journal News
Teachers who receive a poor rating on the state’s new evaluation system could be delayed in moving up New Mexico’s three-tiered licensure system, which is used to set their base pay, the state’s public education chief said Monday. SKANDERA: Claims there is flexibility for teachers However, there is flexibility because teachers rated “ineffective” or “minimally ...read more
School reform is just another advertising campaign | The Denver Post
By Alan Isbell Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education yanked federal dollars when lawmakers decided against using standardized test scores for teacher evaluation. writes Alan Isbell. (Andrew Burton, Getty Images) No Child Left Behind. Race to the Top. Everything’s Better with Blue Bonnet on It. Notice the similarities between government education reform programs and other ...read more
Tennessee changes policy on teacher licenses | The Tennessean
The Tennessee State Board of Education cut ties Monday with a highly controversial policy that would have allowed poor student growth on tests to be a reason to pull teachers’ professional licenses. In its place, commissioners advanced an alternative plan on first reading that would instead provide easier paths for Tennessee’s highest graded teachers. That ...read more
NECAP graduation requirement pushed to 2017 as R.I. Gov. Chafee lets bill become law on its own | Breaking News | providencejournal.com | The Providence Journal
BY LINDA BORG PROVIDENCE, R.I. —The NECAP graduation requirement that roiled the education world for nearly a year will be delayed now that Governor Chafee has allowed the bill postponing the requirement to become law without his signature. Chafee could have vetoed or approved the bill, which was passed by the General Assembly in the ...read more
Is It Time to Escort Bill Gates Out of Our Schools? | John Thompson – Huffington Post
American constitutional democracy seeks a balance between the empowerment of individuals and the checks and balances necessary to protect the rights of the community. Bill Gates, like so many other billionaires, does not seem to respect the wisdom of poet Robert Frost. “Good fences make good neighbors.” Post-World War II prosperity and freedom was based ...read more
PARCC Is in Trouble | CURMUDGUCATION
This story has been emerging in bits and pieces and being reported on as parts of other stories, but it deserves to be mentioned many places, because it has the potential to wreak some serious havoc in this coming school year. Last year, Pearson won the contract to develop the PARCC test. This may have ...read more
Do Teachers’ Unions Have Any Friends in the Obama Administration? | Diane Ravitch – The Huffington Post
We are living in an era when the very idea of public education is under attack, as are teachers’ unions and the teaching profession. Let’s be clear: these attacks and the power amassed behind them are unprecedented in American history. Sure, there have always been critics of public schools, of teachers, and of unions. But ...read more
JUL 01
Bill Gates Blames Students for Failure of His Education Plans | Diane Ravitch’s blog
At a meeting in Los Alamos, Bill Gates said it was easier to find cures for malaria and other diseases than to “fix” American education. Being the richest man in America, people hang on his every word. Gates again knocks U.S. education. He said that technology should help, but it only benefits motivated students, and ...read more
Worse than Michelle Rhee: Teachers and public schools have a shocking new enemy | Salon.com
By Jeff Bryant Remember when Rod Paige, Secretary of Education under George W. Bush, called teachers unions “terrorist organizations?” The year was 2004, and, according to accounts written at the time, Paige made the remark “in a private White House meeting with governors while answering a question about the National Education Association.” He was speaking “at ...read more
Have the people of Newark become invisible? | Bob Braun’s Ledger
The renewal of Cami Anderson’s contract as state-imposed schools superintendent in Newark reveals some unpleasant truths many in the city and state may not want to face. The progressive wing of the state Democratic Party is all but dead. Support for public education among elected officials is waning. The political power of both the city’s ...read more
Brown Presents NY Lawsuit Talking Points | CURMUDGUCATION
n the June 24 NY Daily News, Campbell Brown presented the basic talking points for the newly-manufactured NY road show version of the Vergara trial. Here we go. A Stirring Anecdote Her story centers on the Williams family One of their children… felt so strongly about the lack of instruction she was getting at her ...read more
Pennsylvania Budget Fails to Provide for Desperate Education Needs of Philadelphia’s Children | janresseger
Posted on July 1, 2014 by janresseger Writing for the NY Times, Josh Barro points out: “Kansas has a problem. In April and May, the state planned to collect $651 million from personal income tax. But instead it received only $369 million.” Kansas is one of the states where spending for public education has fallen ...read more
Waiverless Washington State Wants Out of Key NCLB Requirement | Politics K-12 – Education Week
By Alyson Klein on July 1, 2014 8:10 AM Earlier this year, Washington state became the first to lose its No Child Left Behind Act waiver, which had allowed the Evergreen State to get out of many of the mandates of the outdated law. The loss of the waiver means the state has to go ...read more
Jeb Bush’s Ardent Advocacy for Common Core | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Conservatives are backing away from Common Core in response to angry parents who see it as a federal takeover of their local schools. Several states have dropped the Common Core assessments or the Common Core standards. But one conservative is not backing down: Jeb Bush. He has become the flag-bearer for the Common Core. He ...read more
Paul Bruno: What if There is No Crisis in U.S. Education? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Paul Bruno, a science teacher in California, assembled a few charts to show that there is no “crisis” in American education. What we have today was aptly named “a manufactured crisis” by David Berliner and Bruce Biddle, in their book “The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools” in the mid-1990s. ...read more
JUN 30
Common Core-Aligned Tests and the New Pearson GED: Failure By Design? | Living in Dialogue
By Anthony Cody on June 30, 2014 7:06 PM Returning from protesting the Gates Foundation’s funding of corporate education reform, I have been wrestling with some questions about the goals for their project. The Gates Foundation’s Vicki Phillips was interviewed the day of the protest, and had this to say about it: At the Gates ...read more
Newark parents and clergy rally at City Hall against Superintendent Cami Anderson | NJ.com
NEWARK — Despite Friday’s announcement that state officials had renewed Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson’s contract, parents, ministers and community leaders held another rally at City Hall Monday to call for her ouster and the halt of her One Newark plan. Speaking on behalf of the city’s “concerned clergy,” Pastor Mamie Bridgeforth of the Faith Christian ...read more
NCLB Waiver States Struggle to Turn Around Low-Performing Schools | Politics K-12 – Education Week
By Alyson Klein on June 30, 2014 8:22 AM When U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave more than 40 states and the District of Columbia the flexibility from many of the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act, he had an inherent trade-off in mind: States would identify fewer schools for interventions than ...read more
Lucy Calkins Vs. David Coleman | Diane Ravitch’s blog
New York City and Néw York State have enthusiastically embraced the Common Core standards. In the background, however, is a simmering–one might say boiling battle between literacy guru Lucy Calkins of Teachers College and Common Core architect David Coleman about teaching reading. Calkins supports balanced literacy, Coleman supports close reading. The city and state adopted ...read more
How Finland Keeps Kids Focused Through Free Play | The Atlantic
By Tim Walker Like a zombie, Sami—one of my fifth graders—lumbered over to me and hissed, “I think I’m going to explode! I’m not used to this schedule.” And I believed him. An angry red rash was starting to form on his forehead. Yikes, I thought. What a way to begin my first year of ...read more
License to Loot – How Michigan charter schools became prime feasting ground for edu-vultures | EduShyster
By Tim Fournier I started teaching in the Detroit Public Schools in 1993, the very year that Michigan approved its first charter schools. Last week The Detroit Free Press published the results of a year-long investigation into the state’s now 20-year old experiment with charters. The series confirms what many of us predicted back then: ...read more
PTA Mom: Who Bought the National PTA? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
In response to a post by Peter Greene (“The Arne Duncan Drinking Game“), this reader describes the National PTA convention in Texas. The National PTA has received $2.5 million from the Gates Fohndation, including $500,000 specifically for Common Core. She writes: “I was at that PTA convention in Texas and I bit my tongue through ...read more
The segregation of kindergartners — by the numbers | The Washington Post
BY VALERIE STRAUSS June 30 at 8:30 AM Here, from the non-profit Economic Policy Institute, is a snapshot of how segregated public schools are, starting in kindergarten. It was written by Elaine Weiss and Emma García. Weiss has served as the national coordinator for the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education since 2011. García, who joined the ...read more
Concerns over charter school performance persist as more open in state | Lansing State Journal
Two decades into Michigan’s charter school experience, it’s clear that some schools excel academically, others don’t — and charters have not found the key to educating children in poverty. In other words, their results are similar in many ways to the traditional public schools they hoped to outperform. Of the charter schools ranked by the ...read more
5 Facts to Set the Dangerously Deluded Education Reformers Straight | Alternet
June 29, 2014 | Free-market capitalists view education in terms of products and profits. The products, to them, are our children. The profits go to savvy businesspeople who use a “freedom to choose” rallying cry to convince parents that they’re somehow being cheated by an equal-opportunity public school system. Education reformers focus on privatization, public ...read more
Opinion: Educational standardized tests are fundamentally flawed, have no legitimacy | NJ.com
By Frank Breslin It’s an open secret among the education community that standardized tests are not prepared by educators; that some of the test questions are often too difficult by two or three years beyond the age group for which the test is intended; and that last year in the state of New York, they ...read more
Jeff Bryant: Who Will Stop Charter School Corruption? | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Charter schools have been the beneficiary of a myth, the myth that a free market in schooling will produce miraculous results. Unfortunately, like most myths, it is not true. Deregulation translates into lack of supervision and oversight. In the absence of supervision of public funds, scams, frauds, and corruption flourish. Jeff Bryant here reviews some ...read more
Common Core’s testing framework is crumbling | The Washington Post
In 2010, Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave a major speech praising the Common Core State Standards and new Core-aligned standardized tests that the Obama administration was funding and that would be developed by two multi-state consortia. He said: Our children deserve that — and to remain competitive, our country does too. States in each consortium have ...read more
‘Disruptive innovation’ policies hurting state’s children | Lecker: StamfordAdvocate
Education reformers love the notion of “disruptive innovation.” Borrowed from the business world, the theory contends that rather than make incremental progress, industries must be shaken up. This idea has been embraced by the Obama and Malloy administrations, pushing “turnaounds” in which the administration and most or all of the staff of a school with ...read more
JUN 28
Don’t Cry for Me Arizona | EduShyster
Cry for what’s left of your public schools… By Sharon Hill Arizona schools chief John Huppenthal is sorry. How sorry? Really, really, really, really sorry. That was the message at the press conference that Huppenthal called last week, where he issued a tearful apology for anonymously offensive tweets and comments he’s made since 2011. And ...read more
Miami-Dade’s Charters Don’t Serve the Same Students | Jersey Jazzman
The series from the SunSentinel on Florida’s charter schools is well worth the read: it’s the Wild West down there, with some of the craziest stories of charter school malfeasance, corruption, and incompetence you could imagine. What’s missing, however, is some hard data on student population characteristics and academic results. I want to try to fill ...read more
Jack Hassard: NCTQ Ratings Are “Junk Science” | Diane Ravitch’s blog
Jack Hassard, professor emeritus of science education at Georgia State University, here reviews the ratings of the National Council on Teacher Quality and declares them to be “junk science.” He looks at the Georgia institutions of teacher preparation and finds that the ratings are haphazard, spotty, and inaccurate. The he gathers some of the major ...read more
